The 1994 horror drama Interview With the Vampire helped change the course of vampires in cinema. The film was led by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, with the decision to cast Cruise in the film having received plenty of backlash. Now director Neil Jordan is recalling what the backlash was like and why he stuck with his decision to cast Tom Cruise, “Hollywood’s biggest star,” as Lestat for Interview With the Vampire.
His recollection was included as part of his upcoming memoir titled Amnesiac. An excerpt from the memoir, shared via The Telegraph, goes over Jordan’s decisions with Interview With the Vampire and what led Tom Cruise to get the role. As it turns out, while Brad Pitt agreed to play Louis in the film, the actor also thought Daniel Day-Lewis would be receiving the role of Lestat.
Here’s what Jordan shared on that front:
“The problem was the casting of Lestat,” Jordan began. “Brad Pitt had agreed to play Louis and somehow assumed Daniel Day-Lewis would be playing Lestat, an assumption shared by Anne. I offered it to Daniel, who read it, and, as I expected, didn’t want to play the character.
Jordan humorously added that Daniel Day-Lewis, who was a method actor, would have probably been sleeping in a coffin just to get through the production of the film.
“A few years before, he had confined himself to a wheelchair to play Christy Brown in My Left Foot. He would have had to sleep in a coffin for the entirety of this production if he followed the same practice,” Jordan noted. “So we moved on.”
He adds that it felt as though everyone wanted to say who should’ve been Lestat.
“Half of America, it seemed, had read Anne Rice’s books and wanted a say in the casting of Lestat,” he continued. “Anne herself took to the airwaves, saying that it was as if I had cast Edward G Robinson as Rhett Butler. But she was wrong and was later big enough to admit it. They were all wrong.”
“The entire world said, ‘You are miscast,’” Jordan said. “He’s a great actor. If he says he can do something, he will do it in a way that people will be shocked by. Tom has become the last remaining film star.”
He continued to explain what it was like meeting with Cruise and what tempted him to cast the actor as Lestat:
“He seemed fascinated by the character, the strength, the absence of any moral compass whatsoever. As we talked, I remembered something that Sean Penn had told me. Of all the young roustabouts of his generation, Cruise was the toughest, would never back down. I couldn’t quite get that picture from the preternaturally polite young man beside me, but there was something. There was something eerily self-made even about his physique, his evident fitness.”
While it took him some time to finally decide on casting Tom Cruise in Interview With the Vampire, he adds that the actor “left him with a strange feeling.” They met once more and it was a meeting that fully convinced Jordan that Tom Cruise was meant to be Lestat.
“He had to live a life removed from the gaze of others. He had made a contract with the hidden forces, whatever they turned out to be. He had to hide in the shadows, even in the Hollywood sunlight. He would be eternally young. He was a star. He could well be Lestat.”
It seems to have been a fateful decision. While some fans still felt mixed about the decision, audiences overall were surprised to see Tom Cruise’s fantastic performance in the movie. Interview With the Vampire was a success, having introduced new generations to Anne Rice’s wonderful books, and helped move the brand forward to where it is today.